This morning I had to interrupt my exercises to write down something the Holy Spirit gave me. Emotional pain is a heavy weight. It impedes and keeps us bent over. The next part is actually a play on words: it keeps us from walking upright. I smiled. 

Upright is righteousness: conforming our thoughts, purpose, and actions to God’s will and ways. A few days ago we read that God’s way is perfect. Psalm 18:30. Verse 32 says, “It is God who arms me with strength, and makes my way perfect.” He uses our emotionally painful situations to lead us into His way ~ radically opposite of our self-effort to bury.

Proverbs 10:29 says, “The way of the Lord is strength for the upright…” Psalm 112:4 says, “Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness; He is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.”

We need to throw off all our self-effort reactions to life’s stresses. We need to put on (embrace) God’s way through our stresses.